[Special Feature: Working in the Post-Office Era] The Potential of Regional Cities Brought by Promoting Telework During the Child-Rearing Period

2020/12/07

I operate telework and coworking hubs in Takasaki City and Minakami Town in Gunma Prefecture, as well as Saku City in Nagano Prefecture. I am also involved in projects that have many points of contact with women in the child-rearing period, primarily those with preschool-aged children.

In this article, I would like to discuss the potential of regional cities brought about by the promotion of telework during the child-rearing period.

The M-shaped curve for women is being resolved (Figure 1).

The percentage of non-regular employees during the child-rearing period (ages 25–34 and 35–44) is higher for women than for men (Figure 2).

As an activity to prevent isolation during the child-rearing period, the Kotohaba General Incorporated Association, which I operate, held a total of 29 parent-child events in Takasaki City from 2014 to 2018 on vacant land at Yamana Hachiman-gu Shrine, attracting a cumulative total of 3,905 people. We have also provided seven "coworkations" with children for 20 households in Minakami Town, and in Saku City, we have been providing telework support courses for women in the child-rearing period for three years starting from 2019. Furthermore, in fiscal 2020, we added an after-school childcare facility to Telework Center MINAKAMI in Minakami Town, Gunma Prefecture, to promote side jobs during the child-rearing period. Even if the M-shaped curve for women is resolved, I never stop meeting women who struggle to balance child-rearing and work.

Regarding the promotion of telework during the child-rearing period, we formed an alliance between an accommodation business owner in Minakami Town and teleworkers in the child-rearing period, and together with partners, achieved a 125% increase in sales over a period of one year and three months. The accommodation industry is the sector where telework implementation has progressed the least. A common challenge in the industry is to shift from OTAs (Online Travel Agents) to payments via the company's own website to reduce OTA commission costs. Therefore, we introduced digital marketing and supported the implementation of a PDCA cycle for efforts by on-site staff to increase bookings on the company's own site. First, we organized each process using a Business Model Canvas and Customer Journey so that the company and the teleworkers could have a shared understanding of the goals for each initiative. It took nearly six months to foster a culture where on-site staff and teleworkers collaborate through monthly online meetings. I understand this as the result of the management's unwavering desire to introduce telework and create a worker-friendly environment, the on-site staff's willingness to learn and grow in the unfamiliar digital field, and the hard work of the teleworkers in their child-rearing years.

In Saku City as well, we are implementing telework introduction consulting with local teleworkers who are raising children in a way that leads to securing human resources for local construction companies, and we are seeing positive results. We have confirmed that by introducing telework to regional cities, benefits can be realized for local businesses, local women in the child-rearing period, and the region as a whole.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for most of the working population in regional cities, and these environments are often not worker-friendly for women in the child-rearing period. Also, in the Tokyo metropolitan area or government-designated cities, job openings are available for once a week, three hours a day, which are useful when returning to work, but such job openings are scarce in regional cities.

If we classify the cases of women from pregnancy to the early years of elementary school who are interested in working (excluding full-time housewives):

Pattern 1: People who left work due to childbirth and are seeking employment within a range compatible with child-rearing

Pattern 2: People who left work due to childbirth and are seeking a point of connection with society within a range compatible with child-rearing

Pattern 3: People who left work due to childbirth and want to start a private business within a range compatible with child-rearing

Pattern 4: People on childcare leave who are seeking a connection with the local community

They can likely be categorized as above.

Pattern 1—those seeking employment within a range compatible with child-rearing after leaving work due to childbirth—often choose their way of working by prioritizing the location of their home, nursery school, or kindergarten and their working hours within the range of dependent status to avoid filing tax returns. Even if the projects seem to have low utility when returning to full-time work, many insist on employment rather than self-employment. The main support entities are likely the Hello Work offices under prefectural jurisdiction.

Pattern 2—those seeking a connection with society within a range compatible with child-rearing after leaving work due to childbirth—often seem to be looking for human relationships where they can have casual conversations in the community rather than earning money. Seeking connections in areas where they have no acquaintances, they organize events or engage in craft-making that utilizes their hobbies. This is mainly the world of self-help and mutual aid, supported by community activities.

Pattern 3—those who want to start a private business within a range compatible with child-rearing after leaving work due to childbirth—tend to be people who intended to work even during child-rearing before giving birth, who like themselves when they are working, and who work by utilizing the business skills they possess. In some cases, they are forced to choose the style of a private business due to the child's personality or their own health. They are mainly supported by local telework/coworking hubs and crowdsourcing.

Pattern 4—those on childcare leave seeking a connection with the community—often start exploring the possibility of side jobs after returning to work or seek encounters with people different from those at their company or nursery school around the time the child can hold their head up. They are mainly supported by child-rearing related events of basic local governments and the welfare benefits of the companies where they are employed.

In an era of telework and the lifting of bans on side jobs, I feel it is important to support and increase Pattern 3 people in the region and to facilitate the transition from Pattern 2 to Pattern 3. This involves the regional implementation of telework as a way of working that can be sustained at around 5,000 to 30,000 yen per month, about 1 to 3 days a week, and can accommodate circumstances such as a child's sudden illness.

I have the impression that Pattern 1 individuals, which is likely the most common case, often find their options for returning to work limited once child-rearing has settled down. Conversely, Pattern 3 individuals have diverse options for returning to work when child-rearing settles. I have been collaborating with a self-employed telework team of parents with preschool children for five years. From that experience, I am convinced that mastering the telework style of working leads to enriching women's careers.

During the period of raising preschool children, daily plans are often forced to change depending on the child's physical condition in the morning. Working time is squeezed out by mobilizing the daytime during childcare, early mornings before the child wakes up, and time after the child goes to sleep.

I specialize in supporting Pattern 3 self-employed telework rather than employment-based telework. I believe that balancing child-rearing and work is possible when job requirements and specifications are clear, the ordering party has mastered the cloud tools to be used, the compensation system and outsourcing contracts are appropriate, and a backup system is in place.

In crowdsourcing projects, patterns are seen where job requirements and specifications are vague, and there is no consideration for the compensation system or outsourcing contracts. I often witness cases where telework is not done only at home, but where slight anxieties are resolved among the parties involved through casual conversations at local coworking hubs. Also, by meeting partners who can complement each other's skills and personalities, they become able to increase their unit price for orders.

During periods when a child's physical or mental condition is unstable, when support from parents is unavailable, or when a husband is not understanding of the work, some people work one day a week for 5,000 yen a month, and then move to working three days a week for 30,000 yen a month when the situation improves. Accumulating this small effort during the child-rearing period leads to increasing options at the time of a full-scale return to work. Some may continue as sole proprietors, some may return as full-time employees, some as non-regular employees, and some may work by combining various side jobs in the region. By gaining the actual feeling that they can return to work with peace of mind while raising children, more people will desire a second child. Realizing a way of working that is gentle, broad-based, and has a gradation will also contribute to improving the birthrate in regional cities.

In order to deliver work that provides value to clients even in highly uncertain situations like child-rearing, the ordering skills of the client are actually important. While SMEs account for nearly 90% of local employment, I feel that many companies perform work that is person-dependent and based on the premise of meeting in person.

Now that the web has become infrastructure, there is still room for growth in increasing sales, reducing costs, and securing human resources by utilizing websites even for regional companies. However, because the human resources who can handle this live in urban areas, the current situation is that the speed of promotion is slow.

Securing human resources is an urgent issue for regional businesses. As a solution, I think it is good to start by introducing telework so that they can hold monthly online meetings and place orders for work worth about 30,000 yen per month. If the requirements and specifications for the work to be ordered from teleworkers are identified, the internal team utilizes cloud tools, and the compensation system and outsourcing contracts are prepared, they can start immediately.

Through the COVID-19 pandemic, regional companies have also gained the sense that they might actually be able to do telework if they try, so they are reaching the stage of utilizing it as an organizational culture. In fact, at Telework Center MINAKAMI, the number of one-time users during the pandemic (April to October 2020) was about three times that of fiscal 2019, and Work Terrace Saku, which opened in April 2020, has surpassed 30 members. Among them, some people have appeared who have moved their base of living to regional cities and commute to Tokyo about once a week.

Companies that can provide side job projects in rural areas are offered encounters with teleworkers from urban areas, coupled with the trend of moving to regional cities due to COVID-19. As a result, they can utilize human resources with business skills not found in the region, and if they are compatible, they can even be hired as side-job employees. As a result of these efforts, I believe an internal system will be established that can prevent life-event turnover, such as during child-rearing, caregiving, or recovery from illnesses like cancer. By realizing both the recruitment of new talent and the prevention of turnover among current employees, it leads to securing human resources for regional companies.

Policies for promoting women's participation are mostly handled by prefectures, but in order to take regional characteristics into account, I think it is good to also work on them as policies of basic local governments. They should be handled not by the Child and Child-rearing Division, but by the Commerce and Industry Promotion Division or the division in charge of regional revitalization. By enabling regional companies to create a certain amount of telework projects, it is possible to attract the "related population" resulting from the lifting of side job and telework bans in urban areas, increase the number of migrants, and even expect the expansion of satellite offices of urban companies. Furthermore, we can expect an increase in second child births and the migration of the child-rearing generation due to the region becoming a place where people can return to work with peace of mind.

Specifically, I think it would be interesting to renovate idle public facilities into telework/coworking hubs and operate them with a focus on telework support for women in the child-rearing period and the creation of side job projects for regional companies. By collaborating with local obstetrics and gynecology clinics, it will also be possible to approach women shortly after childbirth. Also, to accommodate coworkations with children, it would be even better to collaborate with guesthouse-like functions.

I will also continue to demonstrate the value of introducing telework in regional cities through the efforts of Telework Center MINAKAMI in Minakami Town, Work Terrace Saku in Saku City, and Takasaki City (Photo). Rather than just supporting women, I will build a "stage set" for business owners, women, and the government to collaborate to improve the region.